This invention relates to fuel rod spacers as used in fuel assemblies for the cores of nuclear power reactors and to a spring component for use in such spacers. Such nuclear reactors are discussed, for example, by M. M. Eli-Wakil in Nuclear Power Engineering (McGraw-Hill, 1962).
An example of a nuclear fuel rod or element, comprising nuclear fuel in a sealed tube, is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,365,371. A plurality of fuel rods grouped together to form a fuel assembly is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,431,170.
A variety of fuel rod spacers have been proposed and used in such fuel assemblies. Examples include spacers such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,654,077 and 3,886,038.
This invention is particularly useful in spacers of the ferrule type (a spacer formed of an array of cojoined tubular ferrules) as shown by Matzner et al in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 410,124, filed Aug. 20, 1982, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,679, issued Apr. 2, 1985, assigned to the same assignee herein, which application is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
In the above-referenced application, the spring members of the spacer thereof have a generally elliptical shape and are supported by oppositely directed tabs formed by C-shaped cutouts in the walls of adjacent ferrules of the spacer.
An object of this invention is a spacer spring component which provides freedom in selection of spring characteristics (for example, length and width) of the spring members.
Another object is a ferrule type spacer wherein the separately formed spring members thereof are retained in position without the need of cutouts in the ferrule walls.